May 15, 2017

Congratulations to the departments of History and Psychology who join the Schools of Biological Sciences and Health and Human Sciences in holding a Bronze Athena SWAN award.

PSYCHOLOGY

“The Sciences suffer from a marked decline in women the further along the career path you look, and Psychology is no exception. We are extremely pleased that our department’s commitment to equality was recognised through the Athena Swan bronze level award. We look forward to implementing our 3-year action plan and to providing an even more inclusive environment where everyone, staff and students of any gender, has the opportunities they need to thrive and succeed.”

Dr Helge Gillmeister, Self-Assessment Team lead and Dr Dominique Knutsen, Self-Assessment Team co-lead

HISTORY

“Everyone in the Department is very proud of the award and keen to make progress on our action plan. It’s wonderful that our work and commitment has been recognised”

Dr Matthew Grant, Self-Assessment Team Chair

Athena SWAN awards are given to institutions and departments in recognition of the work they have undertaken to address gender equality. You can find out more about what the University is doing to promote gender equality on the Equality and Diversity website.

May 12, 2017

Many of you will be aware of work going on around the University to improve the experiences and outcomes for different groups of staff and students through participating in initiatives such as Athena SWAN or the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index. This work has led to a number of changes to policy, practice and process across the University, all designed to create a more inclusive environment, but what challenges remain, what barriers still exist that prevent people from being accepted without exception and how can we move towards understanding how individuals’ multiple identities interact to affect their working and learning experiences?

The first of what we hope will be a series of discussions on the broad topic of inclusivity is taking place on Monday 3 July and we are keen to use the wealth of expertise we have in our staff population to look at the issues from different perspectives. The focus of this first session will be on intersectionality, specifically the intersectionality between gender identity and other protected characteristics such as age, religion or belief, race or disability.

So, we are looking for members of staff who would like to take part. The format of the session will be a short talk (5 minutes) by each speaker followed by a panel discussion, taking questions from the audience, chaired by another member of staff.

If you are interested in being a speaker, please contact Jo Hopkins on ldev@essex.ac.uk by Friday 19th May, to express your interest and to indicate the specific topic on which you’d like to speak. You will need to be available at the Colchester campus between 5.45pm and 7.15pm.